Slumdog Millionaire capped its winning season at this year's Academy Awards by taking home eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Director.

The Mumbai-set tale of a young man whose destiny leads him to love and fortune via a TV game show was once considered the underdog of the awards season. It was without a distributor before it was picked up by Fox Searchlight and put on the path to the Oscars, where it scooped up honors from the Golden Globes, the SAGs, the BAFTAs and various guilds before coming to the Academy Awards. In addition to the top two awards, Slumdog also took home honors for Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Score, and Song ("Jai Ho").

In the lead acting categories, Best Actress Kate Winslet finally took home an Oscar after six nominations for Holocaust drama The Reader, while Sean Penn picked up his second award for Best Actor for Milk; the Harvey Milk biopic also won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The late Heath Ledger was the expected winner of Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight, with the award accepted on his behalf by his father, mother and sister, while Penelope Cruz was named Best Supporting Actress for the Woody Allen comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Japan's Departures was the surprise winner of the Best Foreign Language Oscar, with Man on Wire nabbing the Best Documentary Feature award and Wall-E the recipient of Best Animated Feature.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which going into Oscar night was the leader in overall nominations with 13, had to content itself with three technical awards, for Art Direction, Make-Up, and Visual Effects. The Dark Knight scooped up sound editing, while period drama The Duchess sashayed off with Best Costume Design. In the short film categories, Smile Pinki won Best Documentary Short Subject, La Maison En Petits Cubes took home Best Animated Short Film, and Spielzeugland was named Best Live Action Short Film.